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Federal public defenders are challenging the conviction and death sentence of Stephen Rex Edmiston, claiming the 2-year-old victim in the case was not murdered but died after being struck by a vehicle.
Edmiston has spent more than 25 years behind bars after being convicted of killing and raping 2-year-old Bobbi Jo Matthews of Janesville in 1988.
The youngster was snatched from the home of her grandmother the night of Oct. 5, 1988, by a man described as having a beard and wearing a ballcap.
Edmiston, now 57, was the nephew of the grandmother’s boyfriend, and suspicion immediately fell on him.
Police called him in for questioning, and after drawing a map of where the girl’s body could be located, he allegedly stated police would find “a dead, raped little girl.”
According to one of Edmiston’ s trial attorneys, David Kaltenbaugh, who now works as a defense attorney in Blair County, Edmiston admitted to drawing the map but stated state police marked the “X” where the youngster’s body could be located.
Edmiston denied saying that the police would find “a dead, raped little girl.”
He was charged with first-degree murder, and the prosecution, led by now Cambria County President Judge Tim Creany, sought the death penalty.
Edmiston selected trial by judge, and the case was heard by now-retired President Judge Gerard Long.
After Edmiston was convicted of first-degree murder, a jury was convened for the penalty phase and recommended death.
Since then, Edmiston has fought his conviction and in 2004 filed a petition in U.S. District Court in Johnstown. That petition was placed on hold pending the outcome of Edmiston’s state appeals.
Those appeals were exhausted last year, and then Gov. Tom Corbett signed an execution warrant.
U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson in Johnstown placed the execution on hold and gave David Zuckerman and Eric Motylinski of the Federal Public Defenders Office in Philadelphia several months to file a federal complaint challenging Edmiston’s conviction and death sentence.
That 50-page document was filed last week.
It contends that the girl was not murdered but that her horrific injuries were the result of a traffic accident that did not involved Edmiston.
The defense now claims that prosecutors withheld “scores” autopsy photos that would have changed the defense strategy by Kaltenbaugh and Kenneth Sottile.
The federal defenders also contend that the scientific testimony presented by a Pennsylvania State Police forensic expert from Erie – inferring that hairs and blood spots in Edmiston’s pickup truck were likely from the victim – was flawed.
The defense puts stock in a 2009 report from the National Academy of Sciences contending state forensic services were not up to par in the past.
Kaltenbaugh said in 1989 when Edmiston was tried, DNA was a relatively new science.
The first set of DNA tests were conducted at a laboratory that was later discredited, and a second lab indicated there was enough of a sample to obtain results, Kaltenbaugh said this week.
Edmiston’s present attorneys, who specialize in defending those on death row, now contend the youngster wandered out of her home that night and died when struck by an vehicle on the Janesville Pike.
“The nature of the injuries was so horrifying, and unfamiliar, a virtual hysteria gripped the authorities (prompting them to check for recent activity by Satanic cults), and by the time of trial, transformed what was so clearly and obviously a car accident into a murder of unparalleled villainy- the villain being a quiet, small-town machinist, himself a father with no appreciable record, Stephen Rex Edmiston,” stated the recently filed petition.
“All of the child’s injuries are best explained (indeed can be explained only) as a result of blunt force trauma being run over by a vehicle, where the child died instantly,” the defense concluded.
“It is time for the hysteria and demonization to end, and the case to be recognized for what it was, a terrible accident that ended the life of a small, innocent child,” the defense said.
Prosecution of Edmiston is now in the hands of the state Attorney General’s Office. The state took over the case after Kaltenbaugh became a Cambria County assistant district attorney.
An AG spokesman said this week that Deputy Attorney General Jennifer A. Peterson and Senior Deputy Attorney General Susan L. DiGaicomo are in charge of the case.
The spokesman, Jeff Johnson, said that Gibson has given both sides until Oct. 26 to make sure the federal court has the entire state record of the case.
Edmiston’s attorneys then have until Nov. 20 to file a memorandum of law outlining what provisions of the U.S. Constitution they are relying on in their federal challenge.
After that, the prosecution will file its answer.
It will be up to the federal judge to decide if more testimony needs to be taken.
The prosecution attorneys at this point did not comment on the defense petition.
Edmiston is being housed at the State Correctional Institution at Greene.
Mirror Staff Writer Phil Ray is at 946-7468.